Friday, June 24, 2011

Numbers

Last night, before it was time to watch “The Big Bang Theory,” I quizzed my memory on number usage in writing and concluded that I couldn’t remember all the rules. So I decided to see what the internet offered. There I found a fruit salad of information.

One website said to use numerals for numbers 1-9 and spell out numbers ten and above. Another said to spell out numbers one through nine and use numerals for 10 and above. The one consistent piece of advice was: be consistent.

This morning, before leaving for work, I checked two books, memoirs, and between them I found consistency. Both authors spelled all numbers except temperatures and time of day.

All this sent me scrambling, after work, to check my number usage in Half Italian, to find my productivity was indeed consistent. My memory must be better than I thought last night.

A few minutes ago I checked submission guidelines for another magazine; a periodical which seems less interested (less meaning “un”) in the submission, and more in who’s behind the submission. Well-known only, please.

Half Italian’s number usage is consistent. Half Italian rests on a shelf in my home, for now.